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Dogen wrote a piece for Shobogenzo called Shukke Kudoku or “In Praise of Home Leaving.” It’s probably the best example of what has become one of the most problematic aspects of Dogen’s writings for Western lay Buddhist followers of the Soto tradition. This is the chapter in which he most emphatically states that the only way anyone can ever hope to truly understand the Buddha Way or become enlightened is to be a home-leaving celibate monastery dwelling monk. There are a couple other places where he says things like this. But Shukke Kudokuis the one where he really lays it on.

This chapter is the one mainly responsible for the often repeated assertion that Dogen in his younger days favored lay practice but later changed his mind and decided that only monastic Buddhism really mattered. This is the chapter in which he famously says, “Breaking of the precepts having left family life (become a monk) is better than keeping the precepts as a layperson, because with the precepts of a layperson we do not realize liberation.” Then a couple pages later he says it again just in case you forgot.

The chapter is problematic not only for the way it makes all of us who don’t live in monasteries and yet do try to follow Dogen’s philosophy and practice feel bad. It isn’t clear exactly what this chapter was intended for. The colophon at the end states that it was copied by his student Ejo in 1255, two years after Dogen died. However, it was included in the 12 chapter edition of Shobogenzo, which was one of the first editions ever produced.

The chapter itself is repetitive and a bit unfocused, if you ask me. It reads like the rough drafts I often produce in which I just write a whole lot of things down with the intention of removing many of them later after I reread it and decide which parts work best. Even so, it’s definitely Dogen’s writing and he must have intended it as something. In 1246 he delivered a similar speech about home leaving. This one doesn’t say that it’s better to break the precepts as a monk than keep them as a lay person. But it does say that becoming a monk is “as important as your head.”

A good Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) sponsor will tell her sponsee that AA is the only way to get sober, that you have to follow all twelve steps if you want to get well, that without AA you’ll be lost to the ravages of the Demon Alcohol forever. These are not objective truths. There are people who get off the sauce without AA and there are people who follow all twelve steps and still end up drunks. But part of making AA work is for sponsors to instill confidence in those who follow the plan. One of the best ways to do that is to tell the sponsee that only AA can ever possibly help them.

Nobody will ever know for sure if Dogen really had a complete change of heart regarding lay practice or if he was being like a good AA sponsor trying to instill confidence in the monastic path to his monks in a snowy, remote monastery where life must have been pretty tough. There is evidence that he was re-working some of his more pro-lay practice pieces even while he was writing stuff like Shukke Kudoku. Nobody ever asked him straight out whether or not he’d changed his mind on the subject. Or if they did they never wrote down his answer.

But does it really matter what Dogen thought? He was just a guy, after all. He could’ve been wrong even if he really did believe that monasticism was the only way. While I’d be as interested as anyone else to know if he actually changed his mind or not, in the end my practice here in the 21st century is something at once very different from what Dogen wrote about as well as being exactly the same.

This is a great, great piece. Towards the end when he mentions sitting at Tassajara, the routine of obedience to authority, and the fact that daily sitting is preferable to periodic ritualized sitting, I realized that he has the courage to challenge and question Dogen in a way that will unsettle the self-appointed guardians of Dogen and Soto Zen practice. And I would like to think that at some point in his life, Dogen would have appreciated this form of questioning, or repositing of dialogue and teachings. He made a difference between those who parroted teachings and individuals who in the course of recasting and challenging statements became the teachings themselves. The statement that breaking the precepts as a monk is preferable to keeping them
as a layperson is an invitation to examine the nature of practice...

Impressive and thoughtful writing that no doubt will raise the usual questions regarding Brad's seriousness by those who are unimaginative dogmatic drones.

I recently wrote this to folks at the Lay Zen Teachers Association [LZTA], an organization looking to find the place of lay teachers in a world of "homeleaving" priests ... yet "homeleaving" priests who, these days, in Japan and America, typically have homes, spouses and kids! What I wrote is a little hard to pierce, perhaps, because it is based on Dogen's own brand of "Dogenlogic" ... in which x and y can be very different perhaps, but fully each purely itself and purely each other too.

Dogen might say that "monks" are not "lay folks", and they are not the same ... but neither are "lay folks" just "lay folks" if they have the hearts of "monks". Lay folks with the hearts of monks are precisely monks, precisely Buddhas.

----------------

Traditionally, in India, China, Japan and the other Buddhist countries of Asia, one was expected to leave one’s home and family behind in order to begin the necessary training and practice of an “apprentice”. Thus, the ancient ceremony of ordination in Buddhism became known as Shukke Tokudo, “Leaving Home to Take the Way”. Now, in modern Japan and in the West, one of the great changes in the nature of Buddhist clergy has been that most of us function more as “ministers” than “monks”, with family and children, often with outside jobs as “Right Livelihood” supporting us, while ministering to a community of parishioners. This, in keeping with changes in cultures and society, has done much to bring Buddhism out from behind monastery walls. While, now, we may be living in a monastic setting for periods of weeks or months (and thus can be called “monks” during such times), we then return to the world beyond monastery walls, where these teachings have such relevance for helping people in this ordinary life. We are not bound by monastery walls, dropping all barriers separating "inside" from "out". Thus, the term “leaving home” has come to have a wider meaning, of “leaving behind” greed, anger, ignorance, the harmful emotions and attachments that fuel so much of this world, in order to find the “True Home” we all share. In such way, we find that Home that can never be left, take to the Way that cannot be taken.

...

Please understand: Most of you [in the LZTA] come from Lineages that make some clear distinction between "Lay Teachers" and "Priest Teachers". I honor, respect and celebrate the interpretations, ways and Traditions of your respective Lineages. Some may think that one needs to be either a "Lay Teacher" or a "Priest Teacher", A or B, and there is no transcending ground ... much as one cannot be "a little bit pregnant". Thus, you may think that, in our Lineage, since we are so called "Homeleaving" Priests we cannot also be "Lay Teachers". Or, perhaps you might think that if someone is "61%" a priest, then that means they must be only "39% Lay". I understand how someone would jump to such categories and conclusions based on their personal views ...

... But if you hold to such a view about our Lineage, you fail to honor, respect and celebrate how our Lineage sees our ways and Traditions (new and old). We are 100% Lay Teachers, no different than any one of you except as all people are a bit different. We are 100% Homeleaving Priests too. It is much the same as saying that I am a man and an American and a human being all at once, each 100%.

...

If I may offer, in our Lineage we are not some "combination of lay/priest". Some of this may arise from the Soto Zen view of "fully exerting". When I am lay, I am fully that. When we are priests, we are fully that. Likewise, if lay/priest we are fully that ... nothing remaining. Thus I can honestly say that we are exclusively lay with not a drop of priest. [We are exclusively priest without a drop of lay too].

It is a bit like saying that, when I am a father playing with my children at home ... I am fully there and that, for there is nothing else. I am not a worker in an office ... not a drop. When I am working, I am not anywhere else or doing something else ... just that, my home left behind. Sometimes in the office, I may look at a photo of my kids or give them a call to resolve some crisis at home ... fully at home and away at once. Yet, when I am back at home with my kids ... that is all there is, the "away from home" dropped thoroughly away. So it is when I am fully present on the Zafu, fully placing my all in a chanting of the Heart Sutra.

I am not some "combination of father/worker/priest" ... but thoroughly father, thoroughly worker, thoroughly father-worker, thoroughly priest, thoroughly father/worker/priest. When at home, there is no other place to be ... when leaving home, there is no other place to be ... when home and away at once, there is no other place to be ... all our True Home where there is neither father nor worker, male or female, priest or lay ... yet each and all thoroughly fully exerting with nothing remaining.

-------

It is precisely the same as all (I assume) members of the AZTA, LZTA and SZBA have chosen to ignore and toss into Emptiness the just as traditional distinctions [maintained for thousands of years] of male and female among us. When you'all decide to bring back the "Backseat on the Buddha Bus" for the ladies ... nuns having to keep their mouths shut when a male priest of even lesser years has something to say ... then we will bring back the distinction between Lay Teachers and Priest Teachers. Same with the non-distinction made (at least by those in the Japanese Lineages) between we Priests of the Mahayana Bodhisattva Precepts and those ... sans spouse and kids and mortgages ... of the Full Vinaya. We are Gone Gone Gone Beyond all that! The Buddha may have said that there were the Four Categories of Bhikkhu, Bhikkhuni, Upasaka and Upasika ... and he may have said that the lines would become blurred only in the Age of Mappo ... but let's just chalk that up as one more of his "didn't really mean it when he said it" Teachings (there are so many of those) ... not the Supreme Teaching.

But if you ask us if we are "Neither Priest nor Layperson" (as Shinran put it), I will say that that is simply not the case at all. We are each Priest, We are each Layperson with spouse and kids, we are each man and each woman through and through.

In fact, so it is with gay and straight, sexing and celibate, home leaving "monk" in a monastery, "home-leaver" in One's True Home even at home, saint and sinner, Buddha and deluded sentient being. We have and are each and all of that when we act like any of that ... Buddhas when one acts in realization of Buddha, deluded being when one acts with delusion. "Monk" at those times when living celibate in a monastery, "priest" anywhere in the eight directions of space and time. Often we move from one role to the other.

Gassho, Jundo

Note: The LZTA eventually turned me down for membership, saying that I was too priesty because I was a "Homeleaving" Ordained Priest, and could not be both at once in their eyes. Oh well.

Thank you for this Jundo, a very interesting read. Being that we are studying the precepts right now, I am in favor with Brad in saying, "it is better to keep the precepts as a lay practitioner, then to break them as a monk".

Gassho
Michael

RINDO SHINGEN
倫道 真現

As a trainee priest, please take any commentary by me on matters of the Dharma with a pinch of salt.

I recently wrote this about how folks at the Lay Zen Teachers Association [LZTA], an organization looking to find the place of lay teachers in a world of "homeleaving" priests ... yet "homeleaving" priests who, these days, in Japan and America, typically have homes, spouses and kids! It is a little hard to pierce, perhaps, because it is based on Dogen's own brand of "Dogenlogic" ... in which x and y can be very different perhaps, but fully each purely itself and purely each other too.

Dogen might say that "monks" are not "lay folks", and they are not the same ... but neither are "lay folks" just "lay folks" if they have the hearts of "monks". Lay folks with the hearts of monks are precisely monks, precisely Buddhas.

----------------

Traditionally, in India, China, Japan and the other Buddhist countries of Asia, one was expected to leave one’s home and family behind in order to begin the necessary training and practice of an “apprentice”. Thus, the ancient ceremony of ordination in Buddhism became known as Shukke Tokudo, “Leaving Home to Take the Way”. Now, in modern Japan and in the West, one of the great changes in the nature of Buddhist clergy has been that most of us function more as “ministers” than “monks”, with family and children, often with outside jobs as “Right Livelihood” supporting us, while ministering to a community of parishioners. This, in keeping with changes in cultures and society, has done much to bring Buddhism out from behind monastery walls. While, now, we may be living in a monastic setting for periods of weeks or months (and thus can be called “monks” during such times), we then return to the world beyond monastery walls, where these teachings have such relevance for helping people in this ordinary life. We are not bound by monastery walls, dropping all barriers separating "inside" from "out". Thus, the term “leaving home” has come to have a wider meaning, of “leaving behind” greed, anger, ignorance, the harmful emotions and attachments that fuel so much of this world, in order to find the “True Home” we all share. In such way, we find that Home that can never be left, take to the Way that cannot be taken.

...

Please understand: Most of you [in the LZTA] come from Lineages that make some clear distinction between "Lay Teachers" and "Priest Teachers". I honor, respect and celebrate the interpretations, ways and Traditions of your respective Lineages. Some may think that one needs to be either a "Lay Teacher" or a "Priest Teacher", A or B, and there is no transcending ground ... much as one cannot be "a little bit pregnant". Thus, you may think that, in our Lineage, since we are so called "Homeleaving" Priests we cannot also be "Lay Teachers". Or, perhaps you might think that if someone is "61%" a priest, then that means they must be only "39% Lay". I understand how someone would jump to such categories and conclusions based on their personal views ...

... But if you hold to such a view about our Lineage, you fail to honor, respect and celebrate how our Lineage sees our ways and Traditions (new and old). We are 100% Lay Teachers, no different than any one of you except as all people are a bit different. We are 100% Homeleaving Priests too. It is much the same as saying that I am a man and an American and a human being all at once, each 100%.

...

If I may offer, in our Lineage we are not some "combination of lay/priest". Some of this may arise from Soto Zen view of "fully exerting". When I am lay, I am fully that. When we are priests, we are fully that. Likewise, if lay/priest we are fully that ... nothing remaining. Thus I can honestly say that we are exclusively lay with not a drop of priest. [We are exclusively priest without a drop of lay too].

It is a bit like saying that, when I am a father playing with my children at home ... I am fully there and that, for there is nothing else. I am not a worker in an office ... not a drop. When I am working, I am not anywhere else or doing something else ... just that, my home left behind. Sometimes in the office, I may look at a photo of my kids or give them a call to resolve some crisis at home ... fully at home and away at once. Yet, when I am back at home with my kids ... that is all there is, the "away from home" dropped thoroughly away. So it is when I am fully present on the Zafu, fully placing my all in a chanting of the Heart Sutra.

I am not some "combination of father/worker/priest" ... but thoroughly father, thoroughly worker, thoroughly father-worker, thoroughly priest, thoroughly father/worker/priest. When at home, there is no other place to be ... when leaving home, there is no other place to be ... when home and away at once, there is no other place to be ... all our True Home where there is neither father nor worker, male or female, priest or lay ... yet each and all thoroughly fully exerting with nothing remaining.

-------

It is precisely the same as all (I assume) members of the AZTA, LZTA and SZBA have chosen to ignore and toss into Emptiness the just as traditional distinctions [maintained for thousands of years] of male and female among us. When you'all decide to bring back the "Backseat on the Buddha Bus" for the ladies ... nuns having to keep their mouths shut when a male priest of even lesser years has something to say ... then we will bring back the distinction between Lay Teachers and Priest Teachers. Same with the non-distinction made (at least by those in the Japanese Lineages) between we Priests of the Mahayana Bodhisattva Precepts and those ... sans spouse and kids and mortgages ... of the Full Vinaya. We are Gone Gone Gone Beyond all that! The Buddha may have said that there were the Four Categories of Bhikkhu, Bhikkhuni, Upasaka and Upasika ... and he may have said that the lines would become blurred only in the Age of Mappo ... but let's just chalk that up as one more of his "didn't really mean it when he said it" Teachings (there are so many of those) ... not the Supreme Teaching.

But if you ask us if we are "Neither Priest nor Layperson" (as Shinran put it), I will say that that is simply not the case at all. We are each Priest, We are each Layperson with spouse and kids, we are each man and each woman through and through.

In fact, so it is with gay and straight, sexing and celibate, home leaving "monk" in a monastery, "home-leaver" in One's True Home even at home, saint and sinner, Buddha and deluded sentient being. We have and are each and all of that when we act like any of that ... Buddhas when one acts in realization of Buddha, deluded being when one acts with delusion. "Monk" at those times when living celibate in a monastery, "priest" anywhere in the eight directions of space and time. Often we move from one role to the other.

Gassho, Jundo

Note: The LZTA eventually turned me down for membership, saying that I was too priesty because I was a "Homeleaving" Ordained Priest, and could not be both at once in their eyes. Oh well.

Jundo, wow ... you sure have a graceful and clear way of explaining things, I truly enjoyed and understood you the whole way.

Then at the end the note to LZTA made me chuckle ... got to love it.

Deep Gassho
Michael

RINDO SHINGEN
倫道 真現

As a trainee priest, please take any commentary by me on matters of the Dharma with a pinch of salt.

Brad displays much flexibility in his thinking here. It was very good to read this as a reminder to resist dogmatism in our thinking. Even as our devotion to Zen may increase, it shouldn't become unquestioned dogma. Dogma turns useful teachings into sticks with which to beat each other over the head.

I guess some people aren't too keen on challenging the Wise Man or the Scriptures, no matter what philosophy we are talking about.

In my humble point of view, being a monk inside a monastery must be very difficult. There must be a ton of samu to do, lots of studying, sitting and a very strict authority structure to respect.

But being a priest out in the world is even more difficult because you are not protected by any walls and you have to deal with life, work and society, and at the same time you have to study, sit and samu.

Life is the perfect proving ground for our practice.

Thank you for this post, Jundo.

Gassho,

Kyonin

Please remember I am only a priest in training. I could be wrong in everything I say. Slap me if needed.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Mr. Spock

I'm in no position to say whether Dogen really believed these views on monasticism or not. Views change.

I don't think it is necessary , but it can't hurt either. Practice is tougher to establish while walking an economic tightrope and juggling the responsibilities of family, in the middle of a sensual whirlwind. But if practice can be established in the thick of life like that, the roots are tougher. The comment about people not bothering with Zazen once leaving a monastic structure is interesting. Is that common?

The the issue from a treeleaf perspective looks to be that those with the orthodox view can influence public perception of legitimacy, even though that is not where legitimacy flows from. That is a familiar situation encountered by all trailblazers. Treeleaf is blazing a trail that represents the future, alongside traditional monasticism. It will come.

Gassho, kojip

Last edited by Daizan; 09-24-2012 at 11:45 AM.

As a trainee I ask that all comments by me on matters of Dharma be taken with "a grain of salt".

Brad displays much flexibility in his thinking here. It was very good to read this as a reminder to resist dogmatism in our thinking. Even as our devotion to Zen may increase, it shouldn't become unquestioned dogma. Dogma turns useful teachings into sticks with which to beat each other over the head.

Two faced Dogen, Koshoji and Eiheiji, lay practice versus monastic training.
In fact it is possible to cut through this and my brother' s eloquence certainly helps.
And of course Dogen was wrong sometimes. No doubt about it. No need to carve the statue of a saint.
At the same time, in the name of no dogma lots of babies ended up in the gutter with the bath water.
We should be very careful, balance is necessary and everybody is different.For instance, I made Sawaki standards mine: shave your head, wear the kesa and sit. so yes ceremonies can be changed or dropped, kolomo gone for shorts and ,
Hair may even grow in the West but the essence of sitting and kesa cannot be thrown away.

Well said - a deep bow - and an honest query: what is the difference between a "dogmatic antidogma stance" and an attitude of continuous questioning - are we not to bring our curiosity to practice? I do not refer to preferring a constant state of "not knowing" - or philosophical relativism - just a state of questioning - even skepticism - and validation through personal experience in practice...

It is a real fine line, Yugen, we are talking about acting out of not knowing and not pre conceived half baked new ideas. Before one challenges traditions one has to let tradition chalenges him or her. Because in essence what we call tradition is not a body of dusty core beliefs handled down from one generation to the next but a collection of practices that empowers and frees. What we often see here and there are people who in the holy name of democraty and the idea that everybody has a say will ask for major changes before even considering sitting their butt for a substantial amount of time. Although I practiced some rituals and used to value certain practices, after years, I changed, gave up some of them. Not because I was talking out of my arrogant arse ( not only) but because it appeared naturally more in tune that way. Some aspects pf tradition are going against the grain of the ego and will create some form of resistance that some people would immediately see as a necessary and just questioning.

I suggest people give themselves more time to practice, less eloquent blablabla, and find a place when, in its own time, the question arises.

“Breaking of the precepts having left family life (become a monk) is better than keeping the precepts as a layperson, because with the precepts of a layperson we do not realize liberation.”

Read this before and I still feel the same. He was trying to motivate his monks to stay with him in a cold, harsh primitive environment. He may not have even known any lay people that maintained a strong daily practice. Been going thru some serious pain the past few days, just like the monks in his monastery or the layperson next door. How do you deal with that? That's an essential matter. I like Dogen and I think he would be happy to know that you just sit with deep gratitude and humility.

He may not have even known any lay people that maintained a strong daily practice.

This is a good point. I'm fairly ignorant of life in Japan in Dogen's time but generally, in the Buddhist world, it seems lay people tended toward faith based support, while monastics entered into deep practice.

If a non-orthadox view of monasticism turns into an opposition to traditional monasticism ... with “fight the power” overtones.. it looks as if the goal is to replace monasticism instead of opening a new way alongside it.

Gassho. kojip

As a trainee I ask that all comments by me on matters of Dharma be taken with "a grain of salt".

Read this before and I still feel the same. He was trying to motivate his monks to stay with him in a cold, harsh primitive environment. He may not have even known any lay people that maintained a strong daily practice.

I believe that was so, Rich. I gave a talk about Dogen awhile back ...

-----------------------------

Dogen spoke out of Both Sides of His No-Sided Mouth, for example, sometimes saying this about the practice of lay folks (usually when writing to lay folks, as here in Bendowa)

Q: Can a layman practice this zazen or is it limited to priests?

A: The patriarchs have said that to understand Buddhism there should be no distinction between man and woman and between rich and poor. ... It has nothing to do with being either a priest or a lay man. Those who can discern excellence and inferiority will believe Buddhism naturally. Those who think that worldly tasks hinder Buddhism know only that there is no Buddhism in the world; they do not know that there is nothing that can be set apart as worldly tasks in Buddhism. ... All this tells us that worldly tasks do not hinder Buddhism. ... In the age of the Buddha, even misguided criminals were enlightened through his teachings. Under the patriarchs, even hunters and woodcutters were enlightened. And others will gain enlightenment. All you have to do is to receive instructions from a real teacher.

At other times, later times in his life, Dogen changed his tune. When speaking to his band of "all boy" monks in a 13th century monastery in the snowy boondocks, you can often hear him, in talks from this period, dealing with real "human to human" issues in the monastery. A lack of donors and hard economic times, rough food and no money to fix the roof. From what we know of the Eiheiji monks, a hodgepodge of refugees with various spiritual and personal backgrounds, Dogen's work was sometimes like herding cantankerous cats. You can hear in his voice the coach or commander, trying to keep up the sometimes flagging morale among his "men" ... men probably sometimes wondering why they'd left the comforts of home life and town to live and sit through the hard, cold, long, lonely winter days in a monastery in the middle of nowhere. No easy task, unless you preach a little "fire and brimstone". He would say such things as (in Shobogenzo Shukke)

Clearly know that the attainment of the way by all Buddhas and ancestors is only accomplished by leaving the household and receiving the precepts. ... None of those who have not left the household are Buddha ancestors
...

Breaking the precepts as a home leaver is better than keeping them as a layperson. You cannot experience emancipation by keeping the precepts as a layperon."

Hmmm.

If Dogen had not been driven out of town with his small band of monks, his ecumenical dreams a bit tarnished, forced to take retreat in the lonely cold and snow of remote Echizen Province ... would he have later become so seemingly closed to lay practice? I wonder. But, no matter ... for Dogen was a man of many moods and visions, and even Dogen is not the "final word" on what Soto Zen is or is not, and who can practice and who cannot, on what "home leaving" is or is not.

...

Master Dogen was sometimes just a man of his place and time, with views not necessarily always right for our times.

If a non-orthadox view of monasticism turns into an opposition to traditional monasticism ... with “fight the power” overtones.. it looks as if the goal is to replace monasticism instead of opening a new way alongside it.

That is right. We need all ways of Practice to support each other on the Way.

Before one challenges traditions one has to let tradition chalenges him or her. Because in essence what we call tradition is not a body of dusty core beliefs handled down from one generation to the next but a collection of practices that empowers and frees.

I have found this statement to be a true and humbling is so many aspects of my life.

It is true that we should not make of Dōgen a marble statue, not make the texts marble texts. Dōgen knew well the law of the impermanence, and he even declared that the Awakening could be impermanent. Thus, it is necessary to wonder always at which moment Dōgen wrote, because one month later he would maybe have written something different. Brad Warner, Jundo and Taigu wrote things which fascinated me, and I think that they are right to know and to practise the tradition to discover in it the freedom and not the doctrinal submission (I changed my my opinion about this subject since a few weeks thanks to Treeleaf Zendo).
Thanks to all. Kosen

“Breaking of the precepts having left family life (become a monk) is better than keeping the precepts as a layperson, because with the precepts of a layperson we do not realize liberation.”

It's easy to get provoked by a statement like this and ignore the true meaning, the wisdom that could be hidden behind these words. It's very convenient to just disregard the passages that we don't like, that we feel aversion towards, instead of asking ourselves where this aversion comes from, and what the blind old donkey is really trying to say.

We tend to identify ourselves as laypersons and of course our egos don't like it when someone says we can't realize liberation. But is that what he is really saying? We are extremely lucky to live in a time and part of the world where we have access to the kind of advanced practice and teachings that in medieval Japan was reserved for monks only. If you practice dilligently, in the same way as monks traditionally did, does this make you a monk? Does living in a monastery (and only sitting because someone beats you if you don't) make you a monk? That is a question each of us has to answer for themselves. There was a thread a year or so ago about what constitutes a monk. I think I said something silly like "if you consider yourself to be a monk, you are a monk". To me, it's not about living inside a certain type of walls, but about a dedication to practice.

If you get too hung up on the whole monk/monastery/home leaving thing, you may be leaning to much toward the relative side of things and forget about the absolute.

In my view, you can be a monk, even though you don't live in a monastery. When you are a monk, the whole world is a monastery. Leaving home without taking a single step. This is not the same as trying to eat the cake and keep it too. It's a transformation of the mind.

Which brings us to the heart of the koan. Is it better to sometimes break the precepts with the mind of a true monk, than to always keep them with the mind of a monkey? I think so.

Gassho,
Pontus

In a spring outside time, flowers bloom on a withered tree;
you ride a jade elephant backwards, chasing the winged dragon-deer;
now as you hide far beyond innumerable peaks--
the white moon, a cool breeze, the dawn of a fortunate day

“Breaking of the precepts having left family life (become a monk) is better than keeping the precepts as a layperson, because with the precepts of a layperson we do not realize liberation.”

As already stated. It will be hard to tell what exactly was the context Dogen meant this to be understood as.
Also it could just as been one of those things intended for a few.
Not everything Dogen or anyone says is right just because they are a famous old monk.

Sometimes things are said to shake you up,
if you over think it after that point you will be missing the mark

As already stated. It will be hard to tell what exactly was the context Dogen meant this to be understood as.
Also it could just as been one of those things intended for a few.
Not everything Dogen or anyone says is right just because they are a famous old monk.

Sometimes things are said to shake you up,
if you over think it after that point you will be missing the mark

Someone asked about my relationship to Dogen as here I am a little critical, but on another thread I seemed to turn to "what Dogen would do" ...

I guess that my relationship with Dogen is a bit like my relationship with my own father. He could sometimes be a complicated fellow, a bit grumpy or narrow minded, and we sometimes bumped noses or did not see eye to eye ... but I love him, we agreed on most things, we both are doing our best, he was right many times I could not see, and most of what he taught me as a son was very wise. Still, I am a grown up and must live my life as I think.

There is actually a Zenny term for this ... kattō, or entangling vines. Shohaku Okamura (a great tangler with Dogen himself) once wrote of Dogen's view of tangling, "As Dogen Zenji said, Dharma teachers and disciples are like entwining of vines (katto in Japanese). Whether disciples are in the stage of faithfully following the teacher's style of teaching and practice, of rebelliously trying to become independent from the teacher, or of being mature enough for going beyond, the teacher's dharma always deeply penetrates the disciple."

He is referring to the Katto section of Shobogenzo, in which Dogen writes of Bodhidharma's 4 disciple-successors who offered 4 different approaches to the "meaning of Zen", which Bodhidharma called his "skin, flesh, bones and marrow". Which was right? Which was more profound? Dogen wrote ...

What you need to explore through your training is that our First Chinese
Ancestor’s [Bodhidharma's] statement, "You have realized my Skin, Flesh, Bones, and Marrow,"
is what the Ancestor said. Each of his four disciples, respectively, expressed
what they had realized; each demonstrated what they had learned.
What they all had realized is the Skin and Flesh, Bones and Marrow which
sprang forth from their own body and mind. It is the Skin and Flesh, Bones
and Marrow of ‘dropping off body and mind’. ... At the same time, folks who
have not experienced the genuine Transmission fancy that there were relative
degrees of intimacy in what each of the four disciples comprehended, so that
what the Ancestor was saying was that skin, flesh, bones, and marrow are not
the same in their profundity. They think that skin and flesh are coarser than
bones and marrow, and they say that the discerning thought of the Second
Ancestor had surpassed that of the others, so that he alone obtained the
certification of knowing what the marrow was. Those who talk like this have
still not explored through their training what the Buddhas and Ancestors are, nor
have they experienced the genuine Transmission of which the Ancestors speak.

It is a real fine line, Yugen, we are talking about acting out of not knowing and not pre conceived half baked new ideas. Before one challenges traditions one has to let tradition chalenges him or her. Because in essence what we call tradition is not a body of dusty core beliefs handled down from one generation to the next but a collection of practices that empowers and frees. What we often see here and there are people who in the holy name of democraty and the idea that everybody has a say will ask for major changes before even considering sitting their butt for a substantial amount of time. Although I practiced some rituals and used to value certain practices, after years, I changed, gave up some of them. Not because I was talking out of my arrogant arse ( not only) but because it appeared naturally more in tune that way. Some aspects pf tradition are going against the grain of the ego and will create some form of resistance that some people would immediately see as a necessary and just questioning.

I suggest people give themselves more time to practice, less eloquent blablabla, and find a place when, in its own time, the question arises.

Gassho

Taigu

Thanks to Jundo, for this tremendous thread and discussion, from all!

Thank you, Taigu, here,

Cannot bla bla also be practice? Who is to say? And does It not find a place in Its own time? Does suggesting, suggest that more time is needed in judgement of the Whole of the assembled? Who is to say, or in saying, does it matter? Whos eloquence is more then others, of said bla bla bla? It seems everything is, and/or can be bla bla bla, Whos to say?

“Breaking of the precepts having left family life (become a monk) is better than keeping the precepts as a layperson, because with the precepts of a layperson we do not realize liberation.”

Read this before and I still feel the same. He was trying to motivate his monks to stay with him in a cold, harsh primitive environment. He may not have even known any lay people that maintained a strong daily practice. Been going thru some serious pain the past few days, just like the http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/newre...y&p=86151monks in his monastery or the layperson next door. How do you deal with that? That's an essential matter. I like Dogen and I think he would be happy to know that you just sit with deep gratitude and humility.

In my view, you can be a monk, even though you don't live in a monastery. When you are a monk, the whole world is a monastery. Leaving home without taking a single step. This is not the same as trying to eat the cake and keep it too. It's a transformation of the mind.

Which brings us to the heart of the koan. Is it better to sometimes break the precepts with the mind of a true monk, than to always keep them with the mind of a monkey? I think so.

Thank you, Pontus, good perceptions here.

A good chance its my confusion here, but, do not your two paragraphs collide here? Can a sometimes breaking precepts person, be whats considered a `true monk? If the monkey minded is always keeping them, who is true here? I guess it could be asked, who is the most true minded or the monkey? Who is the monkey and who is the monk......... Mu, does a dog have Buddha nature?

A good chance its my confusion here, but, do not your two paragraphs collide here? Can a sometimes breaking precepts person, be whats considered a `true monk? If the monkey minded is always keeping them, who is true here? I guess it could be asked, who is the most true minded or the monkey? Who is the monkey and who is the monk......... Mu, does a dog have Buddha nature?

It depends on how you understand the precepts, in my opinion. The precepts can be said to exemplify enlightened behaviour. Some people see them as law, rules that must never be broken, while others see them more as guideposts, showing a safe way forward when everything seems confused.

Precepts can be upheld for purely egotistic reasons. "Behave and you'll get a cookie and a gold star!" Good deeds done for the wrong reasons are still good deeds, but can't be compared to the spontaneous activity of the Bodhi mind, the "true monk mind". I believe there are times when the precepts can and should be broken.

I used to work with terminal cancer patients in palliative care. There have been times when I knew that the shot of morphine I was about to administer would lead to the death of the patient within hours, if not minutes. In the most literal sense, you could say I was breaking perhaps the most grave of all the percepts, because I killed another human being. But I didn't. Cancer did. I didn't act out of greed, hate or delusion, but out of the best of my wisdom and compassion, trying to alleviate another person's suffering.

I believe even the most literal interpretation of the precepts will help you do good and keep you from doing harm, but as Dogen says, "with the precepts of a layperson we do not realize liberation". In my view, he is encouraging us to look deeper, to find the true meaning of the precepts, liberation, Bodhi mind.

Gassho,
Pontus

In a spring outside time, flowers bloom on a withered tree;
you ride a jade elephant backwards, chasing the winged dragon-deer;
now as you hide far beyond innumerable peaks--
the white moon, a cool breeze, the dawn of a fortunate day

A good chance its my confusion here, but, do not your two paragraphs collide here? Can a sometimes breaking precepts person, be whats considered a `true monk? If the monkey minded is always keeping them, who is true here? I guess it could be asked, who is the most true minded or the monkey? Who is the monkey and who is the monk......... Mu, does a dog have Buddha nature?

Oh Christ, not more of this shit. Why does every single newbie come into this place trying to be a goddamn Zen master from out of the dog-eared pages of Watts-and-D.T. Suzuki-era Western Zen?

Indeed Chet, and what a teacher does in personal interaction is not to filter thoughts. What I try to always do here is to always filter thoughts just because as much as yours or anybodys they can be rough at times.

Indeed Chet, and what a teacher does in personal interaction is not to filter thoughts. What I try to always do here is to always filter thoughts just because as much as yours or anybodys they can be rough at times.

gassho

Taigu

I'm just saying that I'm not trying to put on the hat of a teacher - in any way.

I wish I could be at your level of Zenism, but us newbies are doing the best we can, and with the teachings we are getting, and comprehending at our level for `now. Did you come into this practice fully arrived enough to not need any of `this!?

I am not an educated person for one thing, my phasing and spelling are in the shitter, but I want to learn about Soto Zen very earnestly. I am not trying to speak the language of a know it all Zenner, that may be left up to you more intellectuals. By the way, how is that intellectualism working for you, and how blended is it with you anger and disgust?

I would say to all, teachers or not, give us so-called newbies a chance and reach out with a hand and empathy, at our lowly despicable selves. When reading our posts, if they seem illiterate, un-Zen like, just move on and don't take it personal. It seems you would welcome even the lowest of us, is that not what It is all about. Of the 4 horses, from the perfect down to the lowest that felt the whip to the bone, `the Buddha would pick #4, the one in the most pain.

When `projecting outward on other with disdain, its more about the projectors pain, and there in, his lesson.

Suzuki, is not western, he just choose to come West. You would do well to get off your high intellectualism, and be a beginner, you know little. You would do well to re-read ZMBM again and again, through and through, its all about keeping a beginners mind, not knowing, that is Zen!

We're all newbies every day and every moment - the rest is all mind traffic. I value what each of you has to say - I think about what I read and can choose to agree or not, to understand, or not.

Let's go sit.

Deep bows
Yugen

Hi Jugen,

It seems that in a sense, also, there are no newbies, being we all are. The very point of Suzuki's ZMBM, stay a beginner, because when you think your not, you are full of shit (he may not have stated it so eloquently ). And as you say, every day and every moment. Thank you for that.

I wish I could be at your level of Zenism, but us newbies are doing the best we can, and with the teachings we are getting, and comprehending at our level for `now. Did you come into this practice fully arrived enough to not need any of `this!?

I am not an educated person for one thing, my phasing and spelling are in the shitter, but I want to learn about Soto Zen very earnestly. I am not trying to speak the language of a know it all Zenner, that may be left up to you more intellectuals. By the way, how is that intellectualism working for you, and how blended is it with you anger and disgust?

I would say to all, teachers or not, give us so-called newbies a chance and reach out with a hand and empathy, at our lowly despicable selves. When reading our posts, if they seem illiterate, un-Zen like, just move on and don't take it personal. It seems you would welcome even the lowest of us, is that not what It is all about. Of the 4 horses, from the perfect down to the lowest that felt the whip to the bone, `the Buddha would pick #4, the one in the most pain.

When `projecting outward on other with disdain, its more about the projectors pain, and there in, his lesson.

We're all new, Galen. My irritation has more to do with new students coming in with a real idealistic and sort of 'airy' view of Zen based on the aesthetics of Zen or some Japanese fetishism. I should have been less harsh and not let my irritation inform my response so much. You are correct to note that it probably has more to do with my shit than with yours.

I'd like to invite you to speak more about your own life and practice. It wasn't that your post seemed 'un-Zen-like', it's that it seemed too Zen-like. Taigu probably speaks the most 'Zenny' here - especially with his poetry - and yet there's a real solidity to the way he teaches and it's obvious and inspirational to see how his many years of practice have influenced his life.

We're all new, Galen. My irritation has more to do with new students coming in with a real idealistic and sort of 'airy' view of Zen based on the aesthetics of Zen or some Japanese fetishism. I should have been less harsh and not let my irritation inform my response so much. You are correct to note that it probably has more to do with my shit than with yours.

I'd like to invite you to speak more about your own life and practice. It wasn't that your post seemed 'un-Zen-like', it's that it seemed too Zen-like. Taigu probably speaks the most 'Zenny' here - especially with his poetry - and yet there's a real solidity to the way he teaches and it's obvious and inspirational to see how his many years of practice have influenced his life.

Apologies again for the brusqueness.

Chet

And of course, no apologies needed, lessons served and needed, but thanks Chet. Much of the time when we project onto others, if the projector can gain any realization that its more about him then the one projected on, things can really be learned, progress can be made, even for the so-called victim. No good, no bad, only more understanding like you have displayed here.